Noah Lyles and Tyreek Hill are ready to take it to the track, finally.
The pair, who have spent months trash talking each other on social media, will finally race to settle the debate over who is fastest once and for all.
Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion, and Hill, the Miami Dolphins wide receiver, revealed their plans to People Magazine in an unexpected joint interview on Thursday 13 February.
“This has been an ongoing thing for quite some time now, and I mean, everybody’s seen the back and forth on social media,” NFL star Hill said.
“I’ve been very adamant to show people what real, true speed looks like.”
A race between the two has been rumored for months, and stems from comments made by Hill after the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Lyles won gold in one of the most dramatic 100m races in history, crossing the line just 0.005 seconds ahead of rival Kishane Thompson.
All eight finalists finished within 0.12 seconds of Lyles in Paris, and days later, Hill suggested he would beat the Olympic star on the track.
“I’m not going to beat him by a lot, but I would beat Noah Lyles,” he said.
That kicked off a war of words between the pair, who have been taking public jabs at one another both online – and in Lyles’ case – on the track.
According to People, plans for the race turned up a notch after the Olympic star brandished a sign that said ‘Tyreek could never’ after winning his fourth straight 60m final at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on February 2.
“I think it speaks for itself,” he told the magazine of the sign.
“Everybody says that they’re gonna be the world’s fastest, but when it comes down to it, you gotta be the winner every time, each and every time, and every time I show up to the biggest moments, I win.
“That’s why I’m the world’s fastest.
“I did at the Olympics. I do it at world championships. I do it wherever it’s needed to be done.
“And if I gotta go down and, you know, beat up on Tyreek to prove that I’m the world’s fastest, then it’s gonna be done.”
The location and distance of the race are yet to be determined but the report states that it is likely to take place before the US Track Championships in July.
The pair exchanged words over the distance, with Hill – who clocked 4.29sec at his Pro Day 40-yard dash – claiming Lyles was scared to race him over that distance, and Lyles responded in kind over his gold-medal winning 100m.
“If it was 100-meters, it’d be a blowout, you know, we gotta meet in the middle,” Lyles said.
But that hasn’t stopped Hill, who reached a top speed of of 20.3mph on an 80-yard touchdown during Week 1 of the 2024 season last September, from further fuelling the flames.
“Track world about to be in shambles,” he wrote on X, responding to a post from Lyles sharing the news that suggested he was ready to ‘end this debate.’
Hill’s Week 1 speed of 20.3mph has since been knocked out of the top 10 fastest NFL plays of the NFL season.
According to data from Next Gen Stats, the fastest on-field run of 2024 came from KaVontae Turpin of the Dallas Cowboys, who reached a speed of 22.36mph in Week 11 on a 64-yard TD.
Lyles, in comparison, reached a top speed of 27.03mph in the 100m race in Paris last year.
